


More Than Prince of Cats

by Carmarthen



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cats, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crack, Everybody Lives, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Tybalt is literally a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5565058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tybalt is literally a cat, and his violent possessive jealousy re: Julia is a lot more understandable. 100% pure unadulterated crack. (Extremely vague modern AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Prince of Cats

**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually go for modern AUs, but it seemed to work better with the tone of this collection of jokes and I also went for low-stakes no-feud because I figured a murderous cat was enough for one piece of crackfic. A lot of the jokes are courtesy of drcalvin, as is the one actually emotional bit.
> 
> I am not sorry (okay, maybe a tiny bit sorry).

Romeo is pretty sure Julia’s cat wants to murder him.

Tybalt is a rangy black tom that always manages to look like someone's dunked him in the river and he's just dried out, and he has a remarkably penetrating stare, even for a cat. If a stare could set someone on fire, Romeo would already be sizzling, and Tybalt would probably watch the flames and purr.

“Oh, he takes a little while to warm up to new people,” Julia said when he ventured to ask why her cat hated him. She scratched Tybalt’s ears, one of which had a notch torn out of it, and smoothed down his fur. He arched against her leg, purring and purring, and fixed Romeo with a baleful glare that said _I know where you sleep._ “But he's an old softie, aren't you, Tybalt?” The cat gazed up at her with a slow blink and purred louder. “He'll warm up to you.”

All right, Romeo thought, Tybalt was just a cat. They didn't have to like each other, just...respectfully coexist.

That foolhardy optimism is how he's ended up here, with Dr. Laurence applying some prescription antibiotic ointment to a set of inflamed red scratches on his arm that hurt a whole lot more than they should. “Whatever did you do to provoke the beast?” he asks, and doesn't believe Romeo at all when he says “nothing.”

Romeo has always been more of a dog person.

* * *

He tries to make friends with Tybalt. He really does. He brings cat treats, which Tybalt turns up his little black nose at (later, he sees him daintily accepting them from Julia's mother; Tybalt even deigns to allow her to stroke him, although he remains silent and unpurring). He offers his hand to sniff, and has to yank it back swiftly to avoid the lash of claws.

Tybalt hisses at him.

Later, while he and Julia are sitting on the couch, Tybalt marches imperiously over Julia's lap and onto Romeo’s thigh.

“See, he just has to get to know you,” Julia says, with the smile that first made him fall in love with her at that party. He leans over to kiss her.

Tybalt bites his arm, hard. He yelps and spills the cat to the floor, where Tybalt begins to wash himself with great affront.

“I think I'm bleeding,” Romeo says, and Julia looks stricken.

* * *

The first time he sleeps over, he wakes in the middle of the night suffocating, a warm, heavy, _furry_ weight draped across his face.

He panics, flails, and there's a yowl and a thud from somewhere in the dark.

Next to him Julia mumbles something sleepy and confused.

“Your cat was on my _face._ ” He sounds like he's hyperventilating, and maybe he is a bit, because he'd been dreaming of drowning, and also Julia’s precious cat had just tried to kill him.

“I'm sure he just wanted to cuddle,” Julia says, but the sleep clearing from her voice has been replaced with hesitance.

“Julia,” Romeo says firmly, “beloved, darling. I love you. You know I love you. I know you love me. Your cat...does not.”

Julia is silent for a long moment, long enough that he's starting to worry that she's crying.

“Don't ask me to give him up,” she finally says, lying in his arms in the dark, nestled against his chest like she was made to fit there. There's a soft thump as Tybalt leaps back up to the bed behind her, purring like he's a normal, sweet cat and not hellspawn put on earth specifically to torment Romeo. “There was a while when he was all I had. I rescued him from an abusive home. I can't abandon him now.”

“I thought he was your uncle's,” Romeo says, and then immediately wants to take back the clumsy words, because he remembers that Julia had lived with her uncle when her mother was in rehab.

“So I rescued both of us.” There's a fierceness in her voice that's on the edge of tears, that makes Romeo’s arms tighten around her. He's never been so glad before that someone was dead.

He kisses Julia's forehead. “I’m not asking. But if he tries to smother me in my sleep again, we're locking him out of the bedroom at night.”

* * *

“Look,” Romeo tells the cat, feeling stupid, because Tybalt is a cat and can't understand him. “I'm not trying to take her away, or replace you. She's not going to stop loving you just because I'm here, and I can't sit in her lap and purr when she has a bad day.”

He sets down the plate of food. “Please stop trying to kill me.”

Tybalt doesn't try to scratch him, but if Romeo hoped for any kind of acknowledgement beyond the occasional crunch of bone and a brief yellow-eyed stare, he's out of luck.

“I'm glad we had this talk.”

* * *

When Tybalt hops into his lap while he’s working, spilling an entire box of paper clips on the floor, knocking over a set of files that will take an hour to sort out later, and narrowly missing his coffee cup, Romeo grits his teeth and doesn’t move.

To his shock, Tybalt turns around three times and curls up, paws neatly tucked under him, the picture of feline innocence.

Across the room, Julia grins and gives him a thumbs up, and Romeo smiles back, trying not to let her see that Tybalt is flexing his claws straight through Romeo’s jeans. They feel like needles.

Julia told him that cats kneaded when they were happy, but Tybalt is still silent as the grave. He permits Julia’s mother and her old nanny Angelica to pet him without bloodshed, but he only seems to purr for Julia. Still, for the sake of peace, Romeo can endure.

* * *

Halfway through dinner, Romeo decides that the Capulets’ old family friend Paris may actually be even worse company than Julia’s evil cat.

In his favor, he hasn’t drawn blood—yet—but he did corner Romeo in the kitchen, eye him like he was a roast chicken, and ask if he liked biting. When Romeo finally managed to extract himself, Paris turned his attentions to outrageous flirting with Julia’s mother, alternated with meaningful looks at Julia. Romeo has honestly never met anyone who so thoroughly combines sleazy and socially tone-deaf, and he’s known Mercutio since they were children.

Julia seems cheerfully oblivious, although she’s managed to seat herself between Romeo and Angelica, so perhaps she was just forewarned. Paris looks like the kind of guy who would get handsy under the table.

On the bright side, Tybalt’s familiar homicidal stare from where he’s ensconced on the sideboard is—for once—not aimed at him.

There is far, far too much wine involved in the rest of the evening, and when Paris joins them on the couch later, drapes an arm around Julia’s shoulders, and informs them that if they ever want a threesome, he's there for them, Romeo seriously considers punching him in his smarmy face.

Tybalt beats him to it, sinking his fangs into Paris’ wrist and provoking a blood-curdling scream and immediate retreat.

 _Well,_ Romeo thinks through a wine-fogged haze while Julia, as the most sober member of the party, calls a taxi, and Paris curses at the top of his lungs, _at least he never bit me down to the bone._

He slips Tybalt some leftover chicken with his breakfast the next morning.

He doesn’t try to pet him. It’s better not to push his luck.


End file.
